Feudal Japan. War. Samurais. Feuding. A tower defense game set during this most interesting of times, Samurai Defender has you defending the castle from the hordes and hordes of approaching enemies.

When launching for the first time, the game downloads a minimal amount of extra data.

And the fun begins after that. Although optimized for touch based input, this game plays rather fine with a mouse too, though you will need to be extra agile to shoot arrows when the going gets tough in later stages — the enemy count increases substantially in advanced levels.

The official description:

“A simple defense type action game set in the Warring States period of Japan. Defend the castle from approaching enemies! Touch an enemy soldier for perfect aim! The bowmen will take care of the rest. The enemy is moving towards the castle gate, so touch and take aim accordingly to stop them!”

As noted above, the developers have taken out the hassle present in some of the earlier titles in this genre where you had to manually shoot the enemies. Here you just take aim, and the characters are intelligent enough to target the opposition.

Speaking of characters, the art design is pleasant enough with a cartoon look. Music and audio, too, are engagingly appropriate. And although this free game comes with some extra content that can be purchased in–game, you can still enjoy it till the end without buying.

The game supports all versions of Windows 8.1, including those based on ARM processors. If you own a Surface RT or other such tablet, this one is worth a try.